Presumably working on the basis that if his previous LP, 2017’s A Deeper Understanding, made the US Top 10, won a Grammy and elevated his band to stadium-level success, then there isn’t a lot of point ripping up the blueprint and starting again. Adam Granduciel refines rather than reimagines on his fifth album as the War on Drugs. I Don’t Live Here Anymore once again feels gloriously expansive, a series of meticulously crafted soundtracks for cruising down never-ending highways, as if the everyman euphoria of Springsteen were underpinned by the motorik propulsion of Neu!. The 1980s soft-rock and synthpop influences seem more pronounced this time around, however, variously summoning the spirits of Simple Minds, Bryan Adams, Bruce Hornsby and Kim Carnes, without ever sounding derivative. The effect, especially on Harmonia’s Dream and the title track, can be mesmerising.
Despite its three-year, seven-studio gestation, the album feels warmer, more organic, more personal than A Deeper Understanding, with some of the existential worry that had previously characterised Granduciel’s lyrics toned down, and replaced with suggestions of hope and redemption. And it does feel genuinely surprising when, amid the array of abstract nouns, he drops the line “Like when we went to see Bob Dylan we danced to Desolation Row”. All in all, it’s a rich, absorbing work that rewards immersive listening.
